


Into the Unknown

by Roundworm



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Found Family, I was inspired by Into the Unknown and Show Yourself in Frozen II, M/M, Road Trips, Soulmates, T'hy'la, y'all already know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roundworm/pseuds/Roundworm
Summary: Throughout his entire life, Jim has felt a profound emptiness aching in his soul. Something tugged at him, urged him forward to an unknown goal--it was, as he found out, not to date as many people as possible--and he has spent countless nights wailing into a pillow, begging for answers that did not come. "How?" He would cry, "How do I fix this?"Stuck in a dead end job in the middle of Buttfuck, Iowa, he decides that he ought to stop wondering and start wandering... but he can't do it alone.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Spock, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let's get this bread folks

Leonard gave Jim a withered look as the latter approached his cubicle. The older man tapped his pen against the surface of his desk, identical to every other workers' in every way--they weren't allowed to decorate them. "This is your office, not your cubby" is what the boss said, if he recalled correctly. He was sure that Jim was here to wax poetic about another one of his hair-brained "let's skip town" ideas. 

Good. Anything to keep him from tearing his own eyes out instead of looking at his computer screen for another goddamn second.

"Bones," Jim began, squatting down beside Leonard's shitty office chair. "I'm gonna go insane. No--in fact, I might go so crazy that I stop feeling crazy at all. Please, please hear me out." There was something different in his tone today. Maybe he ought to listen to Jim instead of just using him as background noise to remind himself that he was still, in fact, alive. Well, at least physically. 

It wasn't as if he didn't enjoy the guy's company, far from it. Jim was practically his only friend, unless you considered the two hundred other office drones that occasionally offered him a few words around the water cooler as friends. Jim was just... overbearing sometimes. Gave him too much hope. Leonard actually turned his head to face him this time.

Jim was spurred on by this attention. "We'll skip town," Leonard scoffed. "No, seriously! We could make it a road trip, a-a vacation--you have vacation days saved up, right? So they can't say no!"

Leonard sighed, long-suffering. "Now, you always spout this kinda shit and you never act on it." He pointed out, catching the way Jim seemed to shrink into himself a bit. "Who's to say that this time is the real time?"

Jim opened his mouth to respond when the watch on Leonard's wrist began beeping. 

"Lunch break." He stood up immediately, silencing the watch. Jim watched him, but remained crouched on the floor. He looked weak, in a way. Leonard didn't quite like that look. He gently kicked his coworker's shin. "C'mon then, we can talk about it over a sandwich, I'm starving."

This seemed to perk Jim up enough to get him back to his feet. The pair made their way to the break room, which was already teeming with life, and Leonard prepared for the worst when he opened the refrigerator.

Surprisingly, his lunch was still there today. 

They sat down opposite each other in the furthest corner of the room, and as Leonard began tearing into his ham and cheese, Jim stared down at the table distantly. Leonard rolled his eyes and kicked at his shin again, marginally harder than before.

"Don't get all glassy-eyed on me, boy," He scolded. "You had somethin' to say, say it."

Jim breathed out a sigh that seemed to contain all of the air in his body, if the way that he deflated was any indication. "Bones..." He started, trailing off soon after. "Leonard. There's been... there's something inside of me-- there's been something missing in me since I was born, I'm sure of it, I just--" 

Jim scrubbed his face with his hands, frustrated. "I just don't know what it is! It's been running me up the walls my whole goddamn life, it's like someone's dangling a little coin on a fishing line and just laughing at me when I try to grab it."

Leonard's chewing had gradually stopped until he was forced to swallow his food simply to gape his jaw at Jim incredulously. 

"Jim, everybody's got somethin' they want to achieve." He said slowly. "You ain't different in that regard. If you ask me--"

Jim did not ask him.

"No you don't-- you don't understand, it's not just... some goal!" Jim insisted. "It's like something, or... someone is calling out to me and they're always just barely out of earshot. It's been like this my whole fucking life!"

Leonard closed his mouth around the choice words he was about to spill from being interrupted. He set his sandwich down--he needed both hands for this conversation. 

"...What d'you suppose you ought to do about it, then?" Leonard drawled, setting his chin on the table he'd made with his now free hands. "Run around the country until you somehow stumble into the answer to your mystery?"

Jim frowned and passed on eye contact to sweep over the room, now significantly more empty than when they first came in. 

"Really?" Leonard leaned forward. "That was your plan?"

"Listen," Jim called out over what was sure to be a long rant that he did not have time for. "Whenever I actually tried to follow my heart, the feeling got stronger, like it was trying to lead me. Granted, I didn't exactly get very far. That was the worst part about it," He exhaled wearily. "When Frank stopped me from wandering off, it felt like my whole goddamn world fell apart, it-it actually hurt. If..."

Jim took a stabilizing breath. "If we were to do this, really, we can't just cut our losses and give up if we don't find it immediately. It might actually kill me this time." He laughed, but there wasn't any humor in it. He was serious. Leonard held his face in his hands. The man was serious about this.

Leonard stayed like that even after his watch beeped again, signaling the end of the blessed lunch break. Jim considered shaking him just to make sure he was still alive.

"Christ..." He finally ground out. "Okay."

"Please Bones, I'll--" Jim froze with his hands clasped together. "Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, why the hell not. Got nothin' better to do anyways." Leonard set his half-eaten sandwich back into its bag and stood up. "Don't suppose you have any idea where this 'thing' is, do you?"

Jim lit up like a damn candle and he jumped to his feet, grabbing Leonard by the arms.

"San Francisco." He grinned. Leonard wondered if jumping out a window from this story would kill him or not. 

"San Francisco." Leonard responded blankly. Jim nodded.

"San Francisco."


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere, approximately 94,058,008,659,974 miles away from where a couple of wage slaves brainstormed a plan of attack to successfully beg for time off, there was a gentle tugging between a certain someone’s pointy ears. The tugging, which this certain someone was keen to ignore in favor of his morning meditation, slowly grew stronger as the minutes ticked by. Soon enough, it was as if his brain had grown arms just to tie a lasso and wrangle his attention elsewhere, like… something that this someone couldn’t put a name to. What’s a lasso, anyway?

Spock suppressed a sigh and silently mourned the loss of such a sacred time. He just could not reign his focus back in for even a second longer. Cutting his losses, the Vulcan un-crossed his legs and rose to his feet, finally giving that blasted tugging his precious attention. Almost immediately upon acknowledging it, Spock was overwhelmed with an unexplainable—yet, somehow understandable—sense of relief. It was as if he had been on edge for hours and he was finally drawing in a full breath. He quickly shelved this feeling away to mull over later (although a more apt description would be “shoved this feeling under his pillow in a wild panic as if his parents had suddenly barged into his room in the middle of the night to catch him still awake”). He had more important things to do than follow this ridiculous urge to steal a starship and shoot himself off into the great unknown. 

At the top of the list that Spock appropriately—and privately—named “More Important Tasks to Focus on” was preparing for the day. He stretched the numbness out of his limbs on his way to the washroom, dispelling even the slightest notion that he would be dwelling on his urges. He continued to dispel these notions throughout his entire morning routine, as well as on the drive to the Vulcan Science Academy, and all throughout the first half of his classes. Near the tail-end of his day, Spock was desperately trying to tie the last feeble threads of his mind together. No, these… feelings had not diminished in the slightest; if anything, they’d only increased in their intensity. He clenched his jaw minutely behind the strategic wall of books he’d constructed to hide obscene displays of emotions such as this. The room was completely silent aside from the professor, whose voice sounded particularly monotone today. Spock closed his eyes briefly to center himself, but it was as if that made it even worse. 

When his last class finally ended, Spock was this close to groaning in frustration. Of course, his lessons upon lessons of emotional control as a child granted him the power to calmly stand and collect his items. It took even more control to keep up appearances when he was approached by a fellow classmate. The classmate, a rather lanky woman, greeted Spock with the customary ta’al, who almost robotically responded in kind.

“Spock,” The woman spoke with a quiet sort of control, as if she had thoroughly rehearsed this conversation beforehand. She probably had. “I thought it necessary to inform you that your mental shields have weakened significantly. As I sat beside you, I could sense your unease without even touching you.” 

Spock clasped his hands behind his back, which was just slightly straighter than it was a second ago. “I thank you for this information. I will set aside another hour for meditation tonight.” He didn’t know why he felt like he had to add that last bit, as if this random woman would really care beyond this conversation. The woman considered this for a moment before nodding her head the tiniest bit.

“A logical solution. I wish you safe travels.” She raised her hand in the ta’al once more. “Live long and prosper.” 

“Peace and long life.” Spock replied with a ta’al of his own, relaxing a small amount at the familiarity of this exchange. The woman turned and left as straightforwardly as she’d approached. This simple social exercise quelled the thrumming of that damn urge a little bit, although certainly not completely. He appreciated such simple things; the woman hadn’t even introduced herself—it wasn’t necessary. She just walked up, said what she needed to say, and walked away. 

Spock was one of the last to leave the building and the biting wind snapped him out of his musings. He suppressed another sigh and pulled his robes tighter around himself. He hadn’t planned far enough ahead that morning, his rude awakening having prevented such a thing. As Spock hunkered down into his hovercar for the, thankfully short by drive, ride home, he took a moment to ponder the source of this annoyance. 

The tugging wasn’t unfamiliar to him, to be fair. Although it was far less noticeable these days (aside from today, apparently), Spock recalled a time in his youth when he could do nothing but weep into I-Chaya’s fur as his very being cried out for something. That something was the one thing that he couldn’t quite work out. Of course, as he grew up, he was taught about the concept of t’hy’la—he could put a name to that something. But a face… a face was always out of his reach. Spock had learned to repress this urge for that which was so unreachable. He would simply go about his life as he was always meant to: bond with T’pring, have kids, teach kids to repress their feelings, die. A noble cause, to be sure. 

He was exhausted, physically and mentally, by the time he arrived home. Spock exited the hovercar and… stopped. He stopped for a moment, in the freezing cold of Vulcan’s night, to look up at the sky and the countless array of stars. Something was out there. Not—not the tinfoil hat kind of something, he was already well aware of extraterrestrial life, but… 

Normally, Spock would have shaken his head and entered his home at this point. Perhaps he would have admonished himself a bit on the way too, just to add a healthy dose of insult to injury. But Surak help him, Spock was rooted to the spot, just staring blankly up at the stars. The tugging was somehow both unbearable and distant now, as if someone was banging their fists up against a pane of glass across the room. He knew. Spock knew what it was telling him. 

He wouldn’t be getting an adequate amount of sleep tonight, that was for sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Switching it up a bit hehe  
> boy I hope I captured Spock right, I've never written for him before


End file.
